March 21, 2006

Keeping Us Safe

"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."

"An FBI agent who interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui before Sept. 11, 2001, warned his supervisors more than 70 times that Moussaoui was a terrorist and spelled out his suspicions that the al-Qaeda operative was plotting to hijack an airplane, according to federal court testimony yesterday.

Agent Harry Samit told jurors at Moussaoui's death penalty trial that his efforts to secure a warrant to search Moussaoui's belongings were frustrated at every turn by FBI officials he accused of "criminal negligence." Samit said he had sought help from a colleague, writing that he was "so desperate to get into Moussaoui's computer I'll take anything."

That was on Sept. 10, 2001. (...)

"You thought a terrorist attack was coming, and you were being obstructed, right?" MacMahon asked.

"Yes, sir," Samit answered.

Samit said he kept trying to persuade his bosses to authorize the surveillance warrant or a criminal search warrant right up until the day before the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"You never stopped trying, did you?" MacMahon said.

"No, sir," Samit replied."

It's too easy to say that this shows that the FBI was dysfunctional, not that the Bush administration didn't respond appropriately to what they knew. Part of what you do when you run an organization is to make sure that its parts work effectively: that whatever needs to happen is actually happening. In this case, the administration had been warned by their predecessors that bin Laden, and terrorism more generally, was the greatest threat facing the country. It would not have been impossible for them to try to figure out whether everyone who should have been worried about terrorism actually was, or whether the right systems were in place to ensure that information about terrorist attacks didn't just disappear into an administrative void.

That's what effective leadership is all about.

***

One of the things I find most puzzling about Bush's supporters is their conviction that Bush is doing a good job of keeping us safe. There is one and only one piece of evidence to support this: the fact that we have not been attacked since 9/11. (That will, of course, be cold comfort to, for instance, the UK, Spain, Indonesia, et al.) There are a number of possible explanations for this. One is effective intelligence work. Another is that al Qaeda used up a lot of its most competent people on 9/11, or that such missions require a lot of planning and lead time.

If you look at almost any of the actual steps that might be done to protect us from future terrorist attacks, however, Bush's record is not just bad; it's abysmal.

Securing loose nukes, for instance: this administration has done a terrible job there, and we've allowed North Korea, voted "Most Likely To Sell Nukes To Anyone Who Wants Them", to acquire nuclear weapons.

Homeland security: just check out the 9/11 Commission's report card. It's pretty dismal, especially when you realize that they give grades up to C- just for talking about a problem. We're doing a miserable job on port security, critical infrastructure protection, securing chemical plants, rail security -- all things that should, after 9/11, have been no-brainers.

Disaster preparedness: Consider the response to Katrina. Be very afraid.

Bioterrorism protection: We have spent a lot of money on Project Bioshield, which is widely viewed as a giveaway to pharmaceutical companies that eventhey don't like. We have cut funding on the public health infrastructure we'd actually need in the event of a bioterrorist attack.

(Actually, I can't resist posting this paragraph on Project Bioshield, from Time:

"Yet BioShield hasn't transformed much of anything besides expanding the federal bureaucracy. Most of the big pharmaceutical and biotech firms want nothing to do with developing biodefense drugs. The little companies that are vying for deals say they are being stymied by an opaque and glacially slow contracting process. The one big contract that has been awarded--for 75 million doses of a next-generation anthrax vaccine--is tangled in controversy; it went to a California firm, VaxGen, which in its 10-year history has never brought a drug to market. In the scientific community, biodefense is viewed as yet another boondoggle that is sucking money and resources from critical public-health needs like new antibiotics and vaccines. Indeed, the consensus outside the Administration is that the program is broken before it even gets off the ground. "BioShield has failed miserably," says Jerome Hauer, a former senior official with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). "The intent of BioShield was to attract new companies to get involved in developing countermeasures. It has not only failed to do that; it has kept a lot of other companies away because they're so concerned about the program's lack of focus and direction.""

Bear in mind that that program represents most of our bioterrorism preparation.)

In addition to all this, there's the war in Iraq, which has been a disaster in terms of our national interests and our security. Below the fold, I'm going to reprint an email from Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies to Steve Clemons (who posted it on his blog) that sums it up well.

So why, exactly, does anyone think that Bush is doing a good job of protecting us? Inquiring minds want to know.

"The Iraq War Three Years On: A Scorecard
Anthony H. Cordesman

Let me preface the following points with the statement that I do not oppose the war, and that I believe we have an obligation to the Iraqi people to pursue our current strategy, to try to end the insurrection and prevent civil war, and help them create an inclusive and stable government.

I believe that we have made major advances in creating effective Iraqi forces, that the US Embassy is pursuing the best political approach it can in trying to create the government Iraq needs, and that we are making slow progress towards taking the aid process out of disastrously incompetent US hands in Washington and making Iraqis responsible for their own economic progress.

But, this should not blind us to the strategic consequences of the war to date. We may well fail in all our efforts because they came far too slowly, involved years of inept execution, and face a scale of problems that we still tend to deny. There is a real risk that Iraq will degenerate into full-scale civil war or a level of divisiveness that will paralyze or limit Iraq's progress for years to come.

It is also clear that creating a unity government with a small Sunni minority isn't going to stop the insurrection or risk of a major civil war during 2006, and perhaps for years to come. At best, it will take years to create a fully stable and functioning new political structure and defeat the insurgency.

As a result, I believe it is time to look quite frankly at the war in terms of how it has achieved it is original its objectives after three years, and consider what this means the need to avoid rushing into wars we do not really understand or prepare for in the future:

Objective One: Get Rid of Iraqi WMD Threat: Happened before the war. The main stated objective of the war was pointless.

Objective Two: Liberate Iraq: Security for the average Iraq is now worse, and the new political freedom is essentially freedom to vote for sectarian and ethnic divisions. Some progress to be sure, but much more limited than the Administration claims. It will be 2007-2008 at the earliest before stability can be established -- if it can. We essentially used a bull to liberate a china shop, without any meaningful plan to deal with the consequences. We have tried to fix the resulting problems, but we still don't know whether we can salvage our early mistakes.

Objective Three: End the Terrorist Threat in Iraq: There was no meaningful threat in the first place. Neo-Salafi terrorism now dominates the insurgency and is a far worse threat. Al Qaida now has serious involvement in Iraq. The impact on the region has alienated many Arabs and Muslims and has aided extremists. It has given Iran leverage that has added a new risk of Shi'ite extremism.

Objective Four: Stabilize the Gulf Region and Middle East: The war has been extremely divisive. It has created a major new source of anger against the US and new tensions over the US presence. Iran, Turkey, and neighboring Arab states have all become involved in destabilizing ways.

Objective Five: Ensure Secure Energy Exports: There have been consistently lower Iraqi exports than under Saddam. The predicted increases in Iraqi production have never occurred, and will not for years to come. There has been no meaningful renovation of oil fields and export facilities and serious further wartime disruption. The previous problems have spilled over into the other Gulf exporting states.

Objective Six: Make Iraq a Democratic Example that Transforms the Middle East: Iraq is not a model of anything. Public opinion polls in region show that our efforts at reform to date have created new Arab fears of US, and distrust of US efforts at reform in other countries.

Objective Seven: Help Iraq Become a Modern Economy: The flood of wartime, oil for food, and aid money has put tens of billions of dollars into the Iraqi economy and raised the GDP and per capita income on paper. So have record oil revenues. Even the latest US quarterly report, however, has oil not only dominating the GDP, but rising as a percentage in the future. Most new businesses are shells, starts ups or war related. Youth unemployment easily averages more than 30% nationwide and is 40-60% in the trouble Sunni areas. As yet, no meaningful sectoral reform in agriculture, state industries, or the energy sector. A shift to focused short term aid and letting the Iraqis manage more of the money may help, but largely a wasteful, highly ideological and bureaucratic failure.

In short, being a superpower is not enough. Fighting wars requires both a realistic grand strategy and the ability to implement it.

We may salvage the Iraq War on a national level, but there is little or no chance of salvaging the war in terms of our broader strategic objectives."

Comments

Focusing not on the big point of the post, but on Cordesman's list: What the hell is it that he thinks the U.S. military can do in the next two years to "salvage the Iraq war on a national level"?

It cannot end the insurrection or prevent civil war. And putting it that way masks the extent to which the U.S. has laid the groundwork for civil war, starting well before the invasion and continuing right through the December elections.

As for "help [the Iraqis] create an inclusive and stable government": just go read Billmon. (Three posts in a row! I hope he's back for a while.)

But don't you object to NSA program because you think it should require a warrant and should be in general more difficult to investigate characters like Moussaoui, and are against judges that would more likely to grant the warrants? "Oversight" cuts a couple of differnt ways.

DaveC: It's not that I want it to be more or less difficult; it's that I want some oversight, by someone, and I also want the President to follow the law. As it happens, the FISA court has hardly ever refused a request for a warrant, so it's not clear how difficult they would have made anything.

In this case, the problem seems to have been that the guy's supervisor wouldn't let him use some of his evidence on his warrant application. That's not a problem with getting a warrant; it's a problem with his supervisor.

"But don't you object to [...] and should be in general more difficult to investigate characters like Moussaoui, and are against judges that would more likely to grant the warrants?"

My impulse is to say "are you nuts?"

That would be unfair. And possibly in violation of the posting rules, or at least of their spirit. But I don't understand how you can possibly think that, unless you simply never read what any of the people writing about the NSA program have written, but only believe what liars like Rush Limbaugh claim people writing about the Program say.

If you like, I will again point you to fifty or so posts I've written with my actual opinions, but the short answer is the problematic one.

The shorter answer is: no. What primary source would you possibly cite that leads you to think otherwise?

Why does anyoe support this administration? I can think of only two reasons - money, and fear.

The first is obvious, but while the second is obvious on one level, the hard part is why some succumb to an irrationally broad fear of terrorism while others do not. I think the difference is rooted in the individual's response to uncertainty.

For the dreadfilled, when all the choices available to you appear to have significantly probable bad outcomes - which, for Bush supporters, appears to be any measurable probability - you turn to the experts, to the "authorities". Bush IS the "authority" in this country. He is the President, he is elected, and the spin provides just enough cover to dismiss his critics.

For the dreadfilled among us security is a need ranking right up there with food and shelter. Even though security, in the end, is an illusion, as you, hilzoy, are fully aware.

I can't explain this deferrence to authority in the face of the unknown. I think it must stem from a sense of incompetency to manage ones own private life in the face of uncertainty, and hence leads to an abdication of responsibility on the larger scale of public life.

There are a lot of dim-bulbed, loud-mouthed, pick-a-fight types, who dwell in a perpetual simmering resentful rage at some imaginary Other that's kept them from achieving their rightful place at the top of the heap.

They love the Bush Admin, because it acts just like they would if they actually were at the top of the heap.

The projection you describe is just another kind of fear of incompetency.

Truthfully, I don't think there are so many dim-witted thugs as we would like to believe. Most Bush supporters consider themselves to be rational, practical people who are concerned about the direction the world is taking.

While we can debate just how rational they might be, that doesn't change the fact that they are our brothers and sisters, Casey, not the crazed inhabitants of a Mad Max universe.

Hilzoy, I hope you will consider providing input to the Truman National Security Project at www.trumanproject.org. To overcome the inertia of years of systemic deception of which party has the better platform for national security, there must be a united clear voice from somewhere.

The dimwitted thugs who are the parents of one of my students have finally turned against Bush. The step dad is a former SEAL and a current member of the Gypsy Jokers, mom is a biker chick, and my student is mildly mentally retarded. Up to about a week agao, they were all Bush supprters becuawe he was gong to go get those eveil A-rabs who attacked us.
It was the port deal and Katrina that changed their minds. Both made Bush look like a loser. Americans love a winner and hate a loser.
There is a percentage of voters, I have no idea what percentage, who pick their candidate for ego-centered emotional reasons. They identify with a certain candidate.
To criticize the candideate is to criticizwe them. If the candidate is wrong, then they are wrong too. if elelcted their guy has to be right because they have ego invested in his success. If their pick begins to stink like a loser, they will bail on him because they don't want to be losers too.
So looks like Bush has lost the biker vote.

The step dad is a former SEAL and a current member of the Gypsy Jokers

Interesting combination. Do you know for a fact that he's a former SEAL, or is this something he tells you?

Not saying he's a poser, but there are quite a lot of people who pose as SEALs, Medal of Honor recipients, POWs and the like. If you're really curious, visit
VeriSeal or CyberSeals (they USED to hav a Wall of Shame, IIRC, but now they appear not to) and submit his name for review. There just aren't that many authentic SEALs out there. There's even a guy at Lockheed that's been (had been, actually; he's retired) posing as a SEAL for quite a while.

In his press conferance today the president said those who questioned the NSA program were opposed to surviellance of terrorists.

This is a lie. I remain agnostic on the program because I don't understand exactly what happened, but watching people without warrants is a fundamendal constitutional issue.

The thing is that they are so far gone in their faith based reality they don't see how increasingly their attacks are aimed at the majority. I think it is a cult in collapse. I read te pro war blogs, the ones who have claimed perpetual victory and they are saying books like Assasin's Gate and Cobra II justify their position, yet both indict the administration for ignoring the advice of the military and the evidence.

The Bushiteers have lost the capacity for empiricisms, they project their reality onto the walls of their cave. They know no other. Within their "world view" no other is possible. It's good or evil. They are insane.

"In his press conferance today the president said those who questioned the NSA program were opposed to surviellance of terrorists.

This is a lie."

Unfortunately, it is a very common lie, and will remain common so long as it "conveniently" underscores the recurrent pro-Administration meme that those who are anything other than in lockstep with the President are traitors. This week's Tom Tomorrow nails it for me.

I think during these difficult times -- and they are difficult when we're at war -- the American people expect there to be a honest and open debate without needless partisanship. And that's how I view it. I did notice that nobody from the Democrat Party has actually stood up and called for getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program. You know, if that's what they believe, if people in the party believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it. They ought to stand up and say the tools we're using to protect the American people shouldn't be used. They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me, I promise we're not going to have a terrorist surveillance program. That's what they ought to be doing. That's part of what is an open and honest debate.

"They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me, I promise we're not going to have a terrorist surveillance program. That's what they ought to be doing. That's part of what is an open and honest debate."

One might think that misrepresenting that baldly what one's opponents are saying is the exact opposite of an open and honest debate, and exactly the same as needless partisanship.

They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me, I promise we're not going to have a terrorist surveillance program. That's what they ought to be doing. That's part of what is an open and honest debate.

Except, of course, that's a lie: the Democrats aren't saying that, and never have.

"You know, if that's what they believe, if people in the party believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it. They ought to stand up and say the tools we're using to protect the American people shouldn't be used. They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me, I promise we're not going to have a terrorist surveillance program. That's what they ought to be doing. That's part of what is an open and honest debate."

More to the point, do you believe this is an acceptable and/or honest form of discourse, Slart? Would you agree, or not, that this is clearly a form of slurring-by-implication?

We could just change nouns, after all: "You know, if that's what they believe, if people in the Republican party believe that, then they ought to stand up and say it. They ought to stand up and say the tools we're using to protect the American people should be fascist tools. They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me, I promise we're going to lock up all Arab people in camps, where we'll be safe from them. That's what they ought to be doing. That's part of what is an open and honest debate."

That wouldn't be remotely acceptable language from Democrats, right? Is this not just a way of lying about your opponents? Or are only direct lies lies?

Gary, why are you copping the attitude with Slarti? I don't think he in any way implied that he supported Bush's mischaracterization of those who oppose the illegal wiretaps, he just clarified what Bush actually said.

What Bush said is frankly pretty terrible, as you point out. It makes it hard to support Bush in any way, shape or form.

In a way, Bush's actual words are a self caricature - sort of like the "jokes that write themselves" meme. A moebius strip of words that always leads back to Bush himself.

Some might say that this is mere rhetorical spin. I'm not sure whether or not Slarti is amongst that camp.

I do find it rich that Pres. Bush can claim that no one has openly denounced the cleverly named "Terrorist Surveilance Program" (begging the question pretty openly, I might add) when no one actually knows the extent of said program. The Monty Hall approach to legislation is not particularly appealing to me considering how broadly the AUMF has been interpreted vs. intended.

Yes, Bush could do that. He could refer to the Democratic Party as the Democratic Party rather than the Gingrich/Armey/Hutu sh*t talk "Democrat" Party.

Let's keep the surveillance in place and then elect a Democratic President. Then surveil the top 1000 Republicans in the country. Constantly. For eight years.

Why? Because it's fun. And because they are dangerous to the Republic. And because it's fun. By the way, the word "pizza" means "bomb."

My plan is to provide 100 Pakistani hill tribesmen with cheap cellular phone plans and then have them all call Grover Norquist, say, while he's addressing his various unAmerican friends about their mutual hatred of the Federal Government.

The message could be, "The babies drown on Monday". Sounds like a plot to me. I might even forego my politically correct opposition to the death penalty for that sort of treason.

Slarti strikes me as someone who understands the written word. He pasted in exactly what Bush said, which is not what Debbie Hill says Bush said. It IS different. Still misleading, and intentionally so, but different. I don't read minds either, but I do read words, and nothing in Slarti's words express anything but disagreement, supported by the text, with Debbie's statement.

Anyway, it's all a storm in a teacup kind of thing. Bush remains disingenuous.

Bush, or his managers, are expert at saying one thing, with the understanding being something else. They know that there is a difference between criticizing something and calling for its complete dismantling.

However, they also know that the base sees a equivalance between one and the other.

It is like Bush saying he never said there was a connection between Saddam and 9/11. A true statement. However, it misleads, because there were several instances where he would mention the two close enough together to give the impression of a connection.

"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."